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A Follow Up

To Eileen Waldron’s Tribute to Them

"Wild free-roaming horses

Are living symbols

Of the historic and pioneer spirit of the American West,

And, therefore, they must be protected.”

A Congressional Declaration - Dec. 15, 1971

A little over one hundred very short years ago

Two million wild horses roamed the American West

Artist George Catlin captured their magnificent spirit

In the above painting – which I think is one of his best

Then with the arrival of the 1900s

Their horrendous slaughter soon began

Thousands of them were butchered for market

By the unstoppable insatiable greed of modern man

At the request of many outraged United States citizens

In 1971, Congress finally passed some legislation to protect them

Most people in the U.S. in the 70s still revered our national treasures

Most people didn’t want the glorious freedom of these mustangs to end

But very unbelievably, back on January 25, 2005,

Congress acted to restore their horrendous slaughter and sale

Bowing to cattlemen and overseas horseflesh market demand

On wild horse coffins, they were greedily pounding the final nail

Today there are less than 30,000 wild horses in the U.S.

And our government plans to reduce them even further

Selling off their flesh to food markets in Europe and Asia

Yet one more American treasure - - to be savagely murdered

But thankfully the newly elected Congress has some horse sense

This very week, some much needed protection action was taken

Please contact your own legislators as quickly as you can

Before America’s Wild Horses, by all of us, are forsaken

America’s wild horses and burros had been protected from slaughter from 1971-2005, but in 2004, former U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) stripped those protections by craftily slipping an amendment into the 2005 omnibus spending bill.

And that’s when their horrendous slaughter began again.  Thousands of our wild horses have since been slaughtered in three foreign owned slaughter houses on U.S. soil, and thousands more have been carted off to Mexico and to Canada for slaughter.

After thousands of phone calls, e-mails, and letters, America’s horses and animal welfare advocates won two victories in Congress this week, both key steps toward a permanent ban on horse slaughter for human consumption overseas.

Just yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill reinstating protections of wild free-roaming horses and burros from commercial sale and slaughter. The bill, H.R. 249, passed with overwhelming support by a vote of 277 to 137.

This House vote came a day after the Senate Commerce Committee passed a similar bill, S. 311, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act; legislation that would permanently ban horse slaughter for human consumption in the United States and would ensure that our horses could not be shipped to other countries for the same purpose.

The continued survival of wild horses in the United States is already threatened by the recent loss of 13 million acres of land originally granted to manage this species, and now given over by our elected officials to cattle ranchers.

Please Take a Stand for These National Treasures – Today – by clicking on the link below, and reminding our elected officials once again that America’s Wild Horses deserve much better than being served up on a dinner plate in a French restaurant.

And Please Pass the Link Along To Anyone You Think Might Wish to Help Save These National Treasures For Future Generations of Americans to Come: